Black Coaches in Pro Sports

Jason Daugherty, American Renaissance, March 28, 2014

Accusations of racism are not plausible.

After the National Basketball Association (NBA) celebrated its in-your-face version of Black History Month last month, I thought it would be good to look at the accomplishments of black head coaches in the NBA and other professional sports. They haven’t been very successful.

I have been a fan of the New York Knicks since age six, and watch them whenever they’re on national TV. For a full decade, from 1991 to 2001, the Knicks were in the playoffs every year. They were led by white coaches—Pat Riley, Don Nelson, and Jeff Van Gundy—who won 530 of their 832 regular season games, for a winning percentage of just under 64 percent. In the playoffs, Mr. Riley and Mr. Van Gundy had a solid 72-60 record, and led the Knicks to the NBA Finals in 1994 and 1999.

Since 2001, the Knicks have been led for the most part by black head coaches, and the results have been abysmal. Don Chaney, Herb Williams, Lenny Wilkens, Isaiah Thomas, and Mike Woodson have combined to win only 288 games, while losing 362—a winning percentage of only 44 percent—and have made the playoffs only four times since 2001. In the new millennium, black coaches have won only six playoff games for the Knicks, while losing 10.

The struggles of the black Knicks coaches are not an aberration. There are 30 NBA teams, and therefore 30 NBA head coaches. In a league in which over 80 percent of the players are black, 18 head coaches are white, and 11 are black. This, by itself, hints at the superiority of white coaches. (One NBA head coach, Erik Spoelstra of the defending champion Miami Heat, has a white father and a Filipino mother.)

As of March 27, the 18 white coaches were 74 games over .500, having won 652 games and lost 578, for a winning percentage of 53. The eleven black coaches (plus one former black coach of the Detroit Pistons, who was recently fired and replaced with a white coach) have won 368 games while losing 467, for a win rate of 44 percent.

An especially striking case of substandard performance by a black coach is that of Knicks coach Mike Woodson. Mr. Woodson’s Knicks have the second highest payroll of any team in the league, and yet have managed to win just 30 games while losing 42. The Brooklyn Nets, also led by a black coach, have the highest payroll in the league. They have won only four more games than they have lost. Meanwhile, the second thriftiest team in the league is the Phoenix Suns. Led by a white head coach, the Suns have won 43 games and lost only 29.

Here is a complete breakdown of NBA teams; their current record as of March 27, 2014; the race of their coach; and their 2013-14 payroll:

Team

Wins

Losses

Win%

Coach Race

Payroll in $Mil (Rank)

San Antonio

55

16

.775

White

64.1 (18)

Oklahoma City

52

19

.732

White

69.5 (13)

Indiana

52

20

.722

White

71.4 (8)

LA Clippers

50

22

.694

LS Black**

74.6 (5)

Houston

48

22

.686

White

57.4 (25)

Miami

48

22

.686

Asian

81.8 (3)

Portland

45

27

.625

White

61.3 (22)

Golden State

44

27

.620

LS Black**

70.4 (11)

Memphis

43

28

.606

White

71.6 (7)

Phoenix

43

29

.597

White

53.9 (29)

Dallas

43

29

.597

White

67.9 (15)

Chicago

40

31

.563

White

73.1 (6)

Toronto

40

31

.563

Black

70.9 (9)

Brooklyn

37

33

.529

LS Black**

100.8 (1)

Washington

36

35

.507

White

70.3 (12)

Minnesota

35

35

.500

White

68.5 (14)

Charlotte

35

37

.486

White

60.8 (23)

Denver

32

40

.444

Black

66.7 (16)

Atlanta

31

39

.443

White

59.2 (24)

New Orleans

31

40

.437

LS Black**

66.6 (17)

New York

30

42

.417

Black

87.6 (2)

Cleveland

29

44

.397

Black

63.7 (19)

Detroit

26

45

.366

Black/White*

62.4 (20)

Sacramento

25

46

.352

White

62.3 (21)

LA Lakers

24

46

.343

White

79.3 (4)

Boston

23

48

.324

White

70.5 (10)

Utah

23

49

.319

Black

56.6 (27)

Orlando

20

52

.278

Black

56.8 (26)

Philadelphia

15

56

.211

White

45.6 (30)

Milwaukee

13

58

.183

Black

55.9 (28)

*Detroit fired its black coach after 19 wins and 29 losses. A white coach has taken over and won 7 games while losing 16.
**LS Black denotes a light-skinned “black coach.” The four LS coaches have Barack Obama skin color or lighter.

White coaches are concentrated at the top. Nine of the 12 best teams in the league are led by white head coaches. Moreover, the white coaches tend to do an exceptional job with limited resources. Of the seven teams with top-10 records led by white head coaches, only two have payrolls in the top 10, and three of them have payrolls in the bottom 10.

Light-skinned black coaches fare far better than non-mixed (or less-mixed) black coaches. As a group, they have won 162 games while losing only 122—though with the help of relatively high payrolls. Of the eight dark-skinned black coaches, only one has more wins than losses, and six rank in the bottom ten in wins/losses. All told, dark-skinned black coaches have won a grand total of 206 games this year, while losing 345, for a winning percentage of just 37. No team coached by a dark-skinned black has a win/loss ranking that exceeds its payroll ranking.

The win-loss records of black and white head coaches in the National Football League and Major League Baseball are much closer. What is remarkable in these sports is how few black coaches there are. In the NFL, where 66.3 percent of the players are black and only 30.1 percent are white, for the 2013 season, an astonishing 28 of the 32 coaches were white. Put another way, in a league in which 30 percent of the players are white, 88 percent of the head coaches were white. Only three of the 32 NFL coaches in 2013 were black, and one was Hispanic. This is all the more remarkable considering the NFL’s controversial “Rooney Rule,” established in 2003, which requires that all NFL teams interview minority candidates when they are looking for a new head coach.

Because of the much smaller minority sample size, it is harder to analyze NFL coaching success based on race. But for whatever it’s worth, in 2013, white head coaches won 219 games, while losing 228 and tying 1, for a winning percentage of 49. The three black head coaches had a somewhat better record, combined to win 24, lose 23, and tie 1, for a winning percentage of 51. The NFL’s lone Hispanic head coach was especially successful, winning 12 games and losing 4.

In baseball, much has been made about the declining percentage of African-American players. Though the percentage of American-born blacks in the MLB is right around 8.3, the total number of blacks is just under 20 percent, because foreign-born blacks from Latin America—mainly the Dominican Republic—outnumber American blacks. Of the 30 MLB managers, only three were black in 2013. Twenty-six were white, and again there was one Hispanic.

In 2013, the 26 white managers won a combined 2,103 games while losing 2,110, for a winning rate of almost exactly 50 percent. The three black managers did worse, winning 232 games and losing 255, for a winning percentage of 47.6. As in the NFL, the lone Hispanic manager in MLB had a great season, winning 96 games and losing only 66.

Another way to measure coaching success is by the number of championships won. Frank Robinson became the first black MLB manager in history, almost 40 years ago, in 1975. Since his “breakthrough” only one black manager has won the World Series, though he did it twice (Toronto’s Cito Gaston in 1992 and 1993). One Hispanic manager, Ozzie Guillen in 2005, has won the World Series. The other 35 championship teams since 1975 have been led by whites.

Baseball fans know that in recent years there have been a number of black managers with talented rosters who have failed. These include Ron Washington, who still manages the Texas Rangers despite the revelation that he snorted cocaine while he was manager in 2009; Willie Randolph and Jerry Manuel of the New York Mets; and Dusty Baker, who came up short with talented rosters when he led the Chicago Cubs and when he led the Cincinnati Reds.

In pro football, of the 25 Super Bowls since 1989 (the first year there was black head coach in the Super Bowl era), only two have been won by black head coaches.

In basketball, the blackest sport both in terms of players and coaches, the championship list is again filled with white coaches. Of the last 26 NBA-champion teams, only one has been led by a black head coach: The 2007-08 Boston Celtics were coached by the light-skinned Doc Rivers. Asian head coach Erik Spoelstra has won the last two NBA titles, but aside from him and Doc Rivers, every NBA championship head coach since 1986 has been white. In the 45 years since the first black NBA coach, black coaches have won seven titles, and two of those were by “player-coach” Bill Russell in the 1960s.

There has never been a black head coach in the National Hockey League.

Black coaches, on the whole, have not been successful in the four major sports. When blacks have held head coaching or managerial positions, their performance has been disappointing, especially in basketball. In professional football and baseball, there are a few success stories, but white coaches generally have better records. Blacks often complain that they are underrepresented in coaching positions because of “racism.” The real explanation is that few of them have the ability for these very challenging jobs.

Share This

About Jason Daugherty

Mr. Daugherty studied history at the University of Cincinnati. He lives in Baltimore County, Maryland, and enjoys golf and hiking.

We welcome comments that add information or perspective, and we encourage polite debate. If you log in with a social media account, your comment should appear immediately. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you may comment as a guest, using a name and an e-mail address of convenience. Your comment will be moderated.

What I can say now is that comparing winning percentages in the MLB compared to the NFL and NBA is a bit deceptive, because almost all MLB full season team winning percentages are between 0.4 and 0.6, mainly because the season is 162 games long. Meanwhile, because the NFL only has a 16 game regular season, a 14 win great team is 0.875 and a 2 win horrible team is 0.125. Standard deviation would be the better metric here.

JackKrak

Agreed – a few too many apples vs. oranges comparisons in the stats cited.

I think the author missed a trick – as the Brits say – by skipping the topic of innovations brought about by black coaches. Or lack thereof, I should say.

When has there been a black in sports who was known for his contributions on the drawing board or finesse in the front office rather than being the fastest runner or jumping the highest? There are lots of examples of white coaches and general managers who were marginal players or didn’t even play at all but nonetheless had a mind for the game and the organizational skills to implement their vision.

Where is the black guy who was mediocre as a player but blew everyone away when he got the chance to call the shots?

Still, I don’t want to sound too harsh on the piece – it’s a good idea for feature and food for thought.

Steven Bannister

Question Diversity – well, he’s not really comparing the winning percentages of the MLB with the NFL and NBA. The main gist of this article is the comparison of white coach’s winning percentages against black coach’s winning percentages within the same sport. And in that regard, the article makes it’s point very clearly.

Oil Can Harry

AFAIK more brainpower is need to be a General Manager than a coach.
To the best of my knowledge here is a racial breakdown of current GMs (all of them males):

NFL: 25 white 7 black

NBA: 25 white 5 black

Baseball: 29 white 1 Hispanic

I didn’t reseach the NHL; I assume white men run the show.

BonV.Vant

Bakkaball? Really? We are getting into negro worship territory here! There is no worse fat I can think of for a white male than to be on a bakkaball team or the coach of one. Who cares if the superiority of whites shines in this area? IT is disgusting to contemplate living so completely amongst these people!

BonV.Vant

No one even bothers to ask the question “where are all the asian coaches?” Let’s face it, there is some sort of mojo theta white men have that asians are COMPLETELY lacking in.

sbuffalonative

Maybe it’s time we start asking that question, loudly, on every forum that presents itself.

Let’s force blacks to explain why they need black coaches and why they aren’t concerned about other minority coaches.

Force them to expose their racial bias.

Geo1metric

Excellent point. I often think about this when I read about black children needing black teachers. Huh??

Luca

“Minority” is liberal-speak for black.

bilderbuster

“Minority” is the non White doublespeak word for the vast majority of the world’s population.

MBlanc46

Excellent point.

newscomments70

Black coaches are far superior to white coaches. I know because I saw this in a Snickers commercial.

1stworlder

Are you sure it was not an Oreos commercial?

Puggg

Erik Spoelstra is a good coach because he’s half white and half Filipino? Or because he just happened to be there when some big lug took his talents to South Beach?

I don’t follow mainstream sports like baseball, basketball, and football, so I have to take this guy’s word for it, but I’m not surprised at all. In the two sports I do follow pretty closely – boxing and mixed martial arts – virtually all US trainers/coaches are white.

Oil Can Harry

Actually there are many quality black and hispanic boxing trainers out there.

And to be fair there are some good black and hispanic coaches in various sports- it’s just that the white coaches are better on average.

Garrett Brown

MMA yes, boxing hell no. There’s hardly any white people left in any position of boxing. How is that dead sport doing anyway?

IBWHITE

There’s a few White boxing trainers out there yet. Freddy Roach is considered the cream of the crop and he’s White.

1stworlder

I stopped watching sports when I realized how much steroids and HGH they took had a bigger affect on the game than skill

Einsatzgrenadier

Light-skinned black coaches fare far better than non-mixed (or less-mixed) black coaches. As a group, they have won 162 games while losing only 122—though with the help of relatively high payrolls. Of the eight dark-skinned black coaches, only one has more wins than losses, and six rank in the bottom ten in wins/losses. All told, dark-skinned black coaches have won a grand total of 206 games this year, while losing 345, for a winning percentage of just 37. No team coached by a dark-skinned black has a win/loss ranking that exceeds its payroll ranking.

_____________________________________________________

These assertions are generalizable to the entire structure of black society in the New World, which has become increasingly cognitively stratified along racial lines, no doubt because of the increasing technological sophistication of the modern industrial order. Within the black race, technically a mixed Caucasoid-Negroid race, the normal distribution of IQ and other traits corresponds to a skin color gradient. Light-skinned “blacks”, more accurately mulattos, quadroons, octaroons, tend to have higher IQs, educational attainment and socioeconomic status than darker-skinned blacks. They also exhibit much less social pathology, such as violent crime and illegitimacy. As a group, light-skinned blacks are intermediate between whites and blacks in terms of their life history traits.

The superiority of the mulatto over the darker-skinned black has been known for a long time. In 1928, the sociologist Edward Reuter wrote:

In general the economically prosperous, the socially prominent, and the educated, intellectual, and professional groups are chiefly mulatto while the poor, ignorant, religious and socially disadvantaged classes show relatively little trace of white admixture. […] Among the living Negroes of reputation the mulattoes are in overwhelming majority. All through the period of Negro history the majority of the conspicuously successful individuals have been men of mixed blood.

pcmustgo

Except for un-mixed African immigrants who do better than American blacks. Then again, they are from the “elite” of Africa.

The total number of dressed players at any one time in the regular season of the NBA, MLB and NFL, respectively.

Those three leagues and the scant few number of men that play in them represent (supposedly) the very best people who play basketball, baseball or football in the circa 20-35 age range.

The typical head coach or manager in those leagues is more or less a psychologist and personnel manager of a group of either 15, 25 or 53 men of extremely elite talent who are making a lot of money, some more than the coach himself. Success or failure is therefore is a matter of juggling personalities, not teaching fundamentals.

Truthseeker

The statistic about black managers in baseball is misleading. While they have a losing record overall, two of the three (Ron Washington and Dusty Baker) had winning records. Baker’s Reds qualified for a Wild Card spot, and Washington’s Rangers came within one game of qualifying. The reason they have an overall losing record is because the third black manager is Bo Porter, whose Astros are rebuilding and are currently the worst team in baseball. They aren’t in “win-now” mode.

Three managers judged by one season is really too small a sample size, anyway. It would be more informative to sample several years’ worth of non-white managers. Truth be told, you probably wouldn’t find a single one who merits the Hall of Fame, though you would find a few who did all right.

Let’s do a little out-of-the-box thinking. What if we lived in a world where political correctness was not forced on us by the various interest groups that force it on us. I believe it was people in the White race who first pushed for and got a ban on slavery. That was very humane. What would Whites do with this current detailed information coming out of various groups, including American Renaissance, about Blacks on average just not being as good in many ways as Whites. What would some of Whites push for and get, humanely, if we weren’t dominated by political correctness. It’s really a big question, and it’s one we may have to answer.

Alexandra1973

I remember Isiah Thomas being in the Detroit Edison commercials. “Water and electricity don’t mix!”

Yep, they were kinda pushing it back in the 70s and 80s, I think….

JohnEngelman

Black complaints of being discriminated against are only legitimate if the blacks complaining can prove that they behave and perform better than the whites who they think are being discriminated in favor of. Blacks are rarely if ever able to prove this, or even present evidence.

MikeofAges

No one has to perform better to make a case for inclusion. But they have to perform as well, or at least in the adequate range to make a case. Sports is a “many are called, few are chosen” situation to such an extent that I don’t think it is a good case study simply because there is no middle ground. Either you win or you lose. What I always go back to in my mind is the situation with minority firefighters. My argument is that the minority group members who could qualify as firefighters simply are choosing other careers, notably law enforcement and the military. The reason why so few qualify even when there is extensive outreach is because is because they are combing the semiskilled workforce for minority applicants. Then, when few to none of them qualify, blame gets cast around. Recently New York City did an extensive outreach. Out of more than 2000 minority applicants, four qualified. Actually, four is pretty good considering who they were persuading to apply.

JohnEngelman

Blacks who are marginally capable have many, many opportunities. All kinds of employers are desperate to fill their racial quotas. University admissions deans are under the same pressure.

MikeofAges

Change the subject again, huh?

LHathaway

I remember many years ago a story about a shortage of black officers in the Marines, and we always hear these stories from other arena’s as well, to be honest, I ‘m not sure the original article, but no one seem to have considered the reason they had a shortage was other employers were desperately recruiting them and they chose a better place to work. Kind of like universities lamenting their absence while choosing to ignore black colleges.
The idea behind this article makes no sense whatsoever. . Do you finally agree with me on something? Come-on, you believe in the bell curve and that idea more than anyone? There are 10 black head coaches or something in the article. . surely in a population of 60 million blacks, a million of them or more are smarter than 90% of all whites. When it comes down to 10, there are 10 blacks in America smarter than 99.99% of all whites. I guess the fault was the inability to find these capable ones. . . or not offering them enough pay.
This article makes about as much sense as anything coming out of your local university, though, I bet. Or local paper. . .

MBlanc46

That’s a pretty old-fashioned notion of what discrimination is, John. These days, discrimination is when blacks (and Hispanics) aren’t represented in a field at least in proportion to their representation in the population as a whole.

Dave4088

You’ll find that in the NFL and NBA playoffs is where most black coaches who’ve had a successful season begin to falter. This is the case more so in the NFL than the NBA, but the playoffs is where coaches have to take their mental game up a notch. Similar to how a wunderkind of a black quarterback struggles since defensive coaches add nuances and complexity to their schemes which often confuse them and lead to stalled drives and turnovers.

It wouldn’t shock me if the NFL passed rules limiting defensive complexity to facilitate a takeover of the quarterback position by blacks since all other efforts at displacing whites have failed.

But then limiting complex defensive schemes would have a disparate impact on the mostly black defensive secondary.

Dave4088

Perhaps although black defensive backs wouldn’t need to think as much which would leave more time for planning bongo parties after the game. So it’s almost a win-win for blacks.

Pelagian

Blacks thrive under white leadership. Under black leadership … not so much. That’s the way it has always been, in every field you care to name.

Funruffian

During the 1980’s in LA being a Lakers fan was a requirement for all Southern Californians. Now I see the whole bakkaball fiasco as an excuse to make millions of dollars for players who can jump and run like rabbits while constantly breaking the rules without getting penalized.

IstvanIN

Who cares? The only sports that should count are kid’s sports. Watch, coach and support your kid’s teams and forget the overpaid doofuses.

AndrewInterrupted

Yeah, there was a link floating around today about the education fraud that has to exist to keep the black kids on the team. It was a NC State blurb, where the kid’s term paper was two paragraphs long consisting of something like: “MLK good, white people bad”.
A+

Jon

I agree and do not watch pro sports anymore but the fact is White coaches develop Talent. David Lee a great white player from New York was under used when Isiah Thomas was Coach at NY but now shows everyone how good he is at Golden State. Truth is Dark Skinned coaches do not want to develop their white players and they often sit the bench. I grew tired of the all pro sports a while ago but they are over paid entertainers.

He went to the same St. Louis high school as Bradley Beal. (And coincidentally, the same college, Florida.)

The local eyeball sports casts almost follow Beal around like a groupie, but they barely know Lee exists.

Jon

What i was talking about because when he was with NY. I am a fan of Lee and glad he is doing good but again I no longer watch pro sports because if u are white then 95% of the time u will be sitting the bench no matter how good u are. Glad i do not know Beal. NBA is just glorified street ball now.

Cid Campeador

You couldn’t pay me to patronize Basketball Pro or Collegiate and Football is to be next on my list.
White players have almost disappeared from B’Ball.

Jon

Same here because only sports i watch is my Nephew’s HS game and they are an all white team. The school is a rural school and not near big cities but yes White players are nearly gone.

Bernie Grey

Paul Kersey looked at this topic in the area of municipal government. Black run cities specifically. It is a subject worth broader exploration. I doubt you could get a research grant for it in the climate of Obamaism.

Truthseeker

Yes, Kenny Williams was GM of the 2005 White Sox, and he is black. The only other black GM I can think of to win a World Series was Bob Watson with the 1996 Yankees, but he actually inherited most of that team, and just put the finishing touches on it.

MBlanc46

I stopped following baseball in 1994 (after being a White Sox supporter since the late 1950s) so I can’t speak with much authority. It’s possible that Kenny Williams had a great deal of authority to shape the team. It’s also possible that owner Jerry Reinsdorf was making a lot of the decisions.

I agree with you somewhat. I do enjoy watching certain sports and I understand the entertainment value. What I cannot stand are the idiots who get so emotionally wrapped up in which team wins. Its just a game, who cares! I have sat beside people in bars and heard them talk for hours on end about this or that team, this or that trade, bad ref call, etc. Most of the time I think they are just too dumb to discuss anything of substance.

Lord Sandwich

Oh yes, let’s all support the mechanisms that enable black millionaires to seduce white women. (sarc). I don’t care what non-whites do in sports.

disqus_irCdmAu8It

There is an even bigger, better comparison than sports to show that Black “leadership” is doomed to failure – city government and school districts. Look to Atlanta Georgia and its suburban counter-part, DeKalb county. Both have become Third World hellholes due to the elected officials and school administrations. DeKalb has give from great to dreary. Atlanta school district was a factory producing illiterate gang bangers. Lesson here: If you live in a city thats Black-run, get out of town, quick.

Jon

I might care to watch it again if a team was brave enough to assemble an all white team but for that to happen the team might have to be like the packers where it is owned by the community and need rich execs.

ShermanTMcCoy

Any white person with half a brain should be boycotting this garbage, and cutting off the owner’s revenues at the knees. As “pcmustgo” has said, this is “bread and circuses.”

Snazzy Snook

It’s in the IQ, period ..

ThomasER916

That’s the key point. If they exclude whites then white should destroy their industry.

buffalocharlie

such sneering contempt for “non-whites”….and yet, you racists are so obsessed with them! Please, get a life.

Jade1

Really and non whites are obsessed with attacking and killing whites.

buffalocharlie

Only in your extremely paranoid mind:-)

BonV.Vant

What “pro sports” exist in african countries? The whole enterprise known as professional sports exists only in a world that white people build.